Chapter 3

Question 1

Attrition

Answer 1

loss of employees due to their voluntary departures from the firm through resignation, retirement or death

Question 2

Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS)

Answer 2

Provides up to 10 year protection of Canadian economy and human resource needs

Question 3

Consultants

Answer 3

professionals who provide expert advice and counsel in a particular area

Question 4

contract (or contingent) worker

Answer 4

a freelancer (self-employed, temporary, or leased employee) who is not part of the regular workforce who provides goods or services to another entity under the terms of a specific contract

Question 5

crowdsourcing

Answer 5

the act of a company or institution taking a function once performance by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call.

Question 6

Delphi technique

Answer 6

the soliciting of prediction about specific future events from a panel of experts, using repeated surveys until convergence in opinions occurs.

Question 7

employee self-service (ESS)

Answer 7

a feature of an HRIS that allows employees to access and view their own records and make changes where applicable

Question 8

enterprise-wide systems

Answer 8

link an organization’s entire software application environment into a single enterprise solution.

Question 9

Extrapolation

Answer 9

extending past rates of change into future

Question 10

flexible retirement

Answer 10

programs that provide retirees with the opportunity to work after they have retired and provide them with significant flexibility in terms of how they work, what they work on, and when they work, and where.

Question 11

Forecasts

Answer 11

estimates the future resource needs and changes

Question 12

full-time employees

Answer 12

work 37.5 to 40 hours in a workweek

Question 13

human resource accounting (HRA)

Answer 13

a process to measure the present cost and value of human resources as well as their future worth to the organization

Question 14

human resource information system (HRIS)

Answer 14

gathers, analyzes, summarizes, and reports important data for formulating and implementing strategies by HR specialists and line managers.

Question 15

human resource planning

Answer 15

a process used to determine future human resource requirements by anticipating future business demands, analyzing the impacts of these demands on the organization, determining the current availability of human resources, and making decisions on how to effectively acquire and utilize firms’ human resources.

Question 16

Indexation

Answer 16

a method of estimating future employment needs by matching employment growth with a selected index, such as the ratio of production employees to sale

Question 17

Intranet

Answer 17

an organization-specific internal computer network

Question 18

job sharing

Answer 18

a plan whereby available work is spread among all workers in a group to reduce the extent of layoffs when production requirements cause substantial decline in available work

Question 19

labour market analysis

Answer 19

the study of a firm’s labour market to evaluate the present or future availability of different types of workers

Question 20

labour shortage

Answer 20

insufficient supply of qualified talent to fill the demand for labour

Question 21

management or leadership inventory

Answer 21

comprehensive reports of available management capabilities in the organization

Question 22

manager self-service (MSS)

Answer 22

a feature of an HRIS that allows managers to view and access their employee’s records and add relevant information.

Question 23

Markov analysis

Answer 23

Forecast of a firm’s future human resource supplies, using transitional probability matrices reflecting historical or expected movements of employees across jobs.

Question 24

nominal group technique

Answer 24

a focus group discussion where members meet face-to-face, write down their ideas, and share them. All new thoughts on a topic are recorded and ranked for importance

Question 25

Outplacement

Answer 25

assisting employees to find jobs with other employers

Question 26

part-time employees

Answer 26

persons working fewer than the required hours for categorization as full-time workers and who are ineligible for many supplementary benefits offered by employers.

Question 27

people equity

Answer 27

how organizations measure and manage their human capital to maximize its value

Question 28

phased retirement

Answer 28

gradual phase into retirement with loss or reduction of pension benefits

Question 29

predictive analysis

Answer 29

the process of selecting, exploring, analyzing, and modelling data to create better business outcomes.

Question 30

replacement charts

Answer 30

visual representations of who will replace whom when a job opening occurs

Question 31

skills inventories

Answer 31

summaries of each worker’s skills and abilities

Question 32

staffing table

Answer 32

a list of anticipated employment openings for each type of job

Question 33

talent management

Answer 33

a systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement / retention, and deployment of those individuals with high potential who are of particular value to the organization

Question 34

transition matrices

Answer 34

describes the probabilities of how quickly a job position turns over and what an incumbent employee may do to forecast period od time, such as stay in the current position, move to another position within the firm, or accept another job in another organization

Question 35

work arrangement

Answer 35

a firm’s use of the work hours, schedules and location to ensure that the goals of the organization and the needs of employees are optimally met.